1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of collaborative computing and more particularly to the grouping of collaborative objects within a collaborative information structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Collaborative computing refers to the use by two or more end users of a computing application in order to achieve a common goal. Initially envisioned as a document sharing technology among members of a small workgroup in the corporate environment, collaborative computing has grown today to include a wide variety of technologies arranged strategically to facilitate collaboration among members of a workgroup. No longer merely restricted to document sharing, the modern collaborative environment can include document libraries, chat rooms, video conferencing, application sharing, and discussion forums to name only a few.
A collaborative computing application enjoys substantial advantages over a more conventional, individualized computing application. Specifically, at present it is rare that a goal of any importance is entrusted and reliant upon a single person. In fact, most goals and objectives can be achieved only through the participation of a multiplicity of individuals, each serving a specified role or roles in the process. Consequently, to provide computing tools designed for use only by one of the individuals in the process can be short sighted and can ignore important potential contributions lying among the other individuals involved in the process.
Collaborative computing environments account for the actual nature of a coordinated set of collaborative tasks conducted by people, such as an activity. An activity, unlike a typical project or traditional workflow, refers to objects, actions, and persons in the real world, and provides a computerized representation of selected aspects of those objects, actions, and persons within a collaborative information structure. A collaborative information structure includes ordered relationships between objects, actions and persons, collectively collaborative information objects. An exemplary collaborative information structure includes an activity. Other examples include collaborative workflows, business processes, team rooms, discussion databases, and the like.
In this regard, a simple collaborative workflow might include an ordered set of tasks assigned to several collaborators. The tasks and collaborators in this case are to be viewed as collaborative information objects while the workflow is the collaborative information structure. Typically, a software application designed to create and manage collaborative information structures provides a user interface to display the collaborative information structures in various ways to show the objects, their relationships, and order dependencies. One example of such a software application is an activity manager. Yet, no existing system provides a display that is both complete and descriptive in a way that accommodates flexible human-generated annotations.